3 posts in a week’s time. i’m setting new records people! well the truth is i love blogging, but this year i’ve just been so immersed in school life. i blame it on my new classroom with the tall windows. i’m bathed in light all day and the afternoons are especially beautiful. many days i’m there until 5 quietly working, piddling, planning. last year in the bat cave i couldn’t leave fast enough.
i snapped the photo above for my friend pam. i tease her about her collection of heart-shaped things found in nature. behold, this giant holdfast – a marvelous root-like structure that keeps the kelp anchored to the ocean floor, usually to a rock.
oh let nature do its lovely work, in the shape of hearts or not.
catboy and catgirl are v.v. happy to have me home. i dare not tell them i am leaving again in a few weeks.
the huntington gardens are one of my holdfasts that keep me anchored to los angeles when i want to split.
this morning a walk through the foggy landscape of the grounds pulled me back from my montecito hideaway.
a necessary connection.
the gold & ginger colored leaves of the persimmon slowly losing their chlorophyll. they let go of their branches and swoop towards the grass.
they are few and far between here in southern california, but red leaf carpets do appear from time to time!
oh friends i do hope you are well. making and doing glorious things. settling into big easy chairs each evening to read stories by the fire. pressing leaves between waxed paper. putting on your aprons to stir batter in a big crockery bowl you carried home from france a thousand years ago. stuff like that.
Oh Mary Ann, You make even home sound like a travel log. I am in Lisbon for my first time. My man and I are auditioning the world for a new home base…Lisbon has definite possibilities. Have you been here? It is a wild contradiction of buildings-tenements almost-covered in exquisite tiles. Mostly blue and white, sometimes blue and white and yellow. Intricate, repeating patterns. The patterns repeated in the cobbling of the streets. Streets are cobbled with modern rubble broken down to little square/rectangles. Where in Austria or Germany all this would be scrubbed within an inch of its life – here a good washing once a year would make it better. There is an odd mix of native Portuguese-who were already a mixed bunch because of their history and location, ex-pats and then refugees. Refugees mostly from North Africa, some from Syria I think. Flowers and fog and a south facing coast like Santa Barbara…an odd place and intricately interesting. If you haven’t been, add it to yur list…
Since I’m in Europe I’m extending Thanksgiving to my entire trip. I am thankful for your eye for beauty and that you share it with us.
oh yes lori, carol and i adored lisbon! do enjoy and i can’t wait to hear if it’s where you settle. sounds intriguing! go to the botanical gardens if you get a chance. they are tucked away in some part of the city..can’t remember where, but we enjoyed walking through. i posted about lisbon here:
http://dispatchfromla.com/category/lisbon
and i have a few quirky travel videos featuring lisbon here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB8SmHKU_5Q&index=6&list=PLrwX_lrBvqsUkRH9kvo_8k3qnJ8pVTUVY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbOUguWawak&index=12&list=PLrwX_lrBvqsUkRH9kvo_8k3qnJ8pVTUVY
there are a couple more…on my youtube channel
What an unexpected treat for all of us to hear from you so often this week! As always, you paint the photos with your words and make us smile at the beauty found around us. Keep ’em coming!
Mary Ann, I came upon your blog, I can’t remember how. Spent a while reading several posts. Your photography is a cut above and your love of all things beachy strikes a calming chord. Your writing is inspirational to me. I’m reading your blog from my home in Naples, FL where I live 6 months a year. The other 6 months I live in, you guessed it, Carpinteria. I have no doubt you’ll figure out a way to live there too. Please keep doing what you’re doing; you’re a wonderful blogger. Thank you!
Valerie your comment thrills and delights me. THANK YOU. i love your bicoastal life and want to know more. as i near retirement age i think often of having 2 homes. somehow. naples must be very nice indeed to share a life between there and carp. sounds lovely.
Family is gathering back around the dining room table tonight for round two, turkey sandwiches, my favorite part of the holiday…and we have a totally adorable cluster of kittens waiting on the porch for their share of the leftovers…xox
oh Mz Moss how you do string words…I want to do all those things!